We’re better than what?

Snow is melting. Water is flowing. Icicles are growing. We’re barely above freezing and the melt seems to have been turned on and off much of the afternoon, back and forth over the thaw/freeze border. It’s likely that much of the next month or six weeks will be a repeat with faster and slower cycles. The roads became snow covered last night and the plowing  job this morning was mediocre almost everywhere I drove. The gravel township roads that hadn’t been plowed at all were the most reassuring since there were no sudden changes from pavement to slush.

there are more icicles some years than others

Photo by J. Harrington

All of the preceding tries the patience of folks like me. I keep wondering if this is the nature I’m supposed to love. A nature that moves at its own pace; is inconsistent and inconvenient; has its own agenda and often sees time in a geological scale of eons rather than a human one of generations. On the other hand, the nature we’ve had has been delivering fresh air and water for eons and will probably continue to do so if we stop using the atmosphere and hydrosphere as pollution sinks and realize that treating the Earth as a bank account of resources from which we can continually make withdrawals is not viable with a human population in the billions.

Let’s assume that we all want to live at more than a subsistence level, i.e., we want to thrive not just survive. Has anyone begun to create a vision of what that would mean? Vegans would claim meatless meals are essential. Environmentalists will assert the need for maximum recycling, reduced consumption and reuse rather than disposal of many products. Has anyone tried to translate this into the daily life of a family in various parts of America and Europe and Asia and Africa? If not, why not?

Some of my agitation today was triggered by looking at the rules of the homeowner’s association of a place that the Better Half and I looked at yesterday. Talk about a diminished freedom. I’m now haunted by the specter of buying a place with a H.A. only to discover six months later the ASSociation has decided they can control which books are allowed on the property. In the land of the free and home of the brave, I believe we must be able to do better at allowing more personal freedom and still protect property values and a good night’s sleep. But then I look at Congress and many state legislatures and get dejected. Is it possible we’ve lost the concept of compromise? Are there lessons we could take to increase our levels of tolerance?

I’m feeling extremely fortunate that I don’t live in Turkey, Syria, Ukraine, Russia, China and a number of other locales. What would happen to the Earth’s systems if each person on Earth consumed as much as we do, produced in the same way? Here’s where we’re at with planetary boundaries. This is obviously not a case where more is better.

The peace of wild things

by Wendell Berry

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the Night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the Peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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